Chao Wang

Pair formation in termites involves prolonged contact, but associations of brief opposite-sex cohabitation with allogrooming and oxidative physiology remain unclear. We randomly assigned virgin Reticulitermes chinensis dealates from one field colony to opposite-sex or same-sex dyads for 60 h. Directed allogrooming was recorded for 1 h in triads containing a focal individual and two opposite-sex candidates, one from each treatment. Survival was monitored for 44 d; separate individuals were sampled immediately after cohabitation for assays of oxidative markers and antioxidant enzymes. Opposite-sex-cohabited males groomed focal females longer and more frequently in all six female-focal triads, but neither comparison remained significant after a four-test Holm correction (both p = 0.125). No comparable female-actor pattern or focal-to-candidate grooming bias was detected. The malondialdehyde and protein carbonyl concentrations were lower after opposite-sex cohabitation; 8-hydroxy-2′-deoxyguanosine was lower only in females. Neither the assay-reported reactive oxygen species values nor the survival differed detectably. Preliminary enzyme findings indicated higher male, but lower female, catalase activity, and lower superoxide dismutase activity in both sexes without a detectable sex × cohabitation interaction. These observations identify an exploratory male grooming pattern and marker-specific physiological differences at the treatment end. Copulation was unverified, and fixed source-dish and marking-color assignments limit attribution to cohabitation alone.

Environmental feedback is often expected to promote cooperation in spatial evolutionary games, but its effect depends on how environmental variation enters payoff evaluation and strategy updating. We study a spatial prisoner's dilemma game that separates two local components. Ecological feedback changes the payoff matrix according to the local frequency of cooperative neighbors, whereas the local social environment combines the focal payoff with the average payoff of nearest neighbors to define effective fitness. Monte Carlo simulations show that ecological feedback alone cannot sustain cooperation, because the interaction remains a weak prisoner's dilemma under every local ecological state. Once the local social environment is introduced, ecological feedback shifts the extinction threshold of cooperation to larger values of the temptation to defect, expands the regions of coexistence and full cooperation, and supports the formation of compact cooperative clusters. Transition probabilities calculated for representative local configurations show that ecological feedback increases defector-to-cooperator conversion only in some boundary configurations, whereas the local social environment affects a wider class of local updates by incorporating neighborhood payoff information into effective fitness. A pair approximation model provides theoretical support for the numerical results by reproducing the main qualitative trends observed in Monte Carlo simulations. Cooperation is therefore promoted not by ecological feedback in isolation, but by the coupling between payoff heterogeneity generated by ecological feedback and the local social environment that allows this heterogeneity to affect strategy updating.

Microbial carbon use efficiency (CUE) is a critical factor affecting soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics. However, the relative importance of biotic and abiotic drivers of CUE variations remains debated, resulting in large uncertainties in SOC predictions. In this study, we combined field soil sampling with isotope labeling experiments to identify the driving factors of changes in microbial CUE along an elevation gradient (1,200–2, 400 m) in the Qinling Mountains. Our findings demonstrated that higher elevations (2,000–2,400 m) resulted in greater microbial CUE, which partially aligned with the enhancement of SOC sequestration and the total SOC content. Notably, microbial CUE was more closely linked to microbial community composition rather than abiotic factors alone. The fungal community at higher elevation, shaped by soil substrate availability, promoted higher nutrient acquisition function and stronger synergistic interactions of microbes within the microbial network, leading to higher CUE. These results highlight the importance of integrating the taxonomic and functional traits of microbial communities to predict community-level CUE. Our findings provide a potential mechanism underlying community-level metabolic efficiency, which has important implications for understanding the microbial-mediated carbon dynamics under global climate changes.

Rhizosphere metabolites play a pivotal role in plant–soil–microbe interactions, yet the absence of standardised sampling method presents challenges for data comparability and a unified understanding of rhizochemistry dynamics. In this study, the rhizosphere metabolites of spring wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.) were systematically evaluated using three commonly used sampling methods – rhizosphere soil extraction, hydroponic collection, and in situ sampling. We assessed the differences in metabolite abundance, diversity, composition, and metabolic pathways among the three methods. The results revealed that rhizosphere soil extraction method is simple and repeatable, but it tends to underestimate the rare metabolic features compared to the other two methods. The hydroponic collection method offered a more comprehensive rhizochemical profile, however, it may not reflect the actual soil environment in which plants grow. The in situ method mostly captured the rhizochemical dynamics under natural conditions but was technically complex and less reproducible. Pathway enrichment of differential metabolic features showed a distinct pattern, with hydroponic emphasising plant‐centric primary metabolism, and rhizosphere soil extraction and in situ methods reflecting pathways more associated with environmental interaction and ecological adaptation. Overall, our results highlight that the sampling methods significantly influences the abundance and composition of the detected rhizochemical profile, thus the rhizosphere metabolites sampling methods should be considered according to the experimental objectives of future research.

Methane (CH ₄ ), uptake by well-drained soils plays a vital role in mitigating atmospheric CH ₄ . Previous research has demonstrated that nitrogen (N) addition and rhizosphere processes markedly affect soil CH ₄ uptake. However, how rhizosphere activity mediates the response of soil CH ₄ uptake to N addition remains unclear. Here, we conducted in-situ measurements of CH ₄ fluxes using collar treatments to quantitatively assess the rhizosphere contribution to soil CH ₄ uptake in a temperate larch plantation. We further evaluated the effects of N addition level (CK: no N addition; low-level N addition: 20 kg N ha ^-1 yr ^-1 ; high-level N addition: 50 kg N ha ^-1 yr ^-1 ) and duration (short-term and long-term) on CH ₄ uptake. We found that soil CH ₄ uptake was insensitive to low-level N addition but significantly reduced by 20.9% under high-level N addition. Notably, rhizosphere CH ₄ uptake decreased even under low-level N addition, primarily due to reduced rhizosphere activity in our N-limited plantation. A global meta-analysis further confirmed that N addition below 25 kg N ha ^-1 yr ^-1 had no effect on soil CH ₄ , whereas higher N levels suppressed it by increasing soil NH ₄ ⁺ -N and NO ₃ ^- -N accumulation. Both field experiments and meta-analysis found no significant effect of N addition duration on soil CH ₄ uptake. Overall, our study highlights the critical role of rhizosphere processes in regulating the soil CH ₄ uptake under N addition highlight differential responses to N addition levels, and provide important implications for predicting forest soil CH ₄ sinks under future global N deposition scenarios.

Background: Electric eels evolved remarkable electric organs that enable them to instantaneously discharge hundreds of volts for predation, defense, and communication. However, the absence of a high-quality reference genome has extremely constrained the studies of electric eels in various aspects. Results: Using high-depth, multiplatform sequencing data, we successfully assembled the first telomere-to-telomere high-quality reference genome of Electrophorus electricus, which has a genome size of 833.43 Mb and comprises 26 chromosomes. Multiple evaluations, including N50 statistics (30.38 Mb), BUSCO scores (97.30%), and mapping ratio of short-insert sequencing data (99.91%), demonstrate the high contiguity and completeness of the electric eel genome assembly we obtained. Genome annotation predicted 396.63 Mb repetitive sequences and 20,992 protein-coding genes. Furthermore, evolutionary analyses indicate that Gymnotiformes, which the electric eel belongs to, has a closer relationship with Characiformes than Siluriformes and diverged from Characiformes 95.00 million years ago. Pairwise sequentially Markovian coalescent analysis found a sharply decreased trend of the population size of E. electricus over the past few hundred thousand years. Furthermore, many regulatory factors related to neurotransmitters and classical signaling pathways during embryonic development were significantly expanded, potentially contributing to the generation of high-voltage electricity. Conclusions: This study not only provided the first high-quality telomere-to-telomere reference genome of E. electricus but also greatly enhanced our understanding of electric eels.

Although crop conversion from annual to perennial crops has been considered as one path towards climate-smart and resource-efficient agriculture, the effects of this conversion on soil multifunctionality and biomass yields remain unclear. The objective of the study is to enhance soil multifunctionality while exerting a marginal influence on farmer income. Here, we investigated the effects of annual winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and two perennial crops (a grass (Lolium perenne L.), a legume (Medicago sativa L.), and their mixture) on soil multifunctionality and biomass yield on the Yellow River floodplain. Soil multifunctionality was assessed by the capacity of water regulation and the multifunctionality of carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) cycles. C cycle multifunctionality index is the average of β-xylosidase, β-cellobiosidase, and β-1, 4-glucosidase. N cycle multifunctionality index is the average of L-leucine aminopeptidase and β-1, 4-N-acetyl-glucosaminidase, and acid phosphatase represented (and dominated) P cycle functions. The results showed that perennial crops enhanced soil multifunctionality by 207% for L. perenne, 311% for M. sativa, and 438% for L. perenne + M. sativa, compared with annual winter wheat (T. aestivum). The effect of perennial crops on soil multifunctionality increased with infiltration rate, dissolved organic C, microbial biomass C, and extracellular enzymatic activities for both C and N acquisition. However, we observed that perennial crops had a lower biomass yield than annual crop. Therefore, the transition of agricultural landscapes to perennials needs to take into account the balance between environmental protection and food security, as well as environmental heterogeneity, to promote sustainable agricultural development.